


Youth And Its Attendant Benefits

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Conversations, Gen, Slice of Life, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-23 19:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18708223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: “Balthier?”“Hm?”“How old are you?”“Hardly a question to ask a gentleman, my dear,” Balthier said mildly.





	Youth And Its Attendant Benefits

“Balthier?” Penelo asked, and Balthier glanced up from the slow, meticulous maintenance he had been performing on his pistol, working it over with a cloth. Penelo, very interested in weaponry, had been watching him quite carefully since he had begun; Vaan had grown swiftly bored, and was now seated on the banister beside the little raised stage in the Sandsea, his lands loosely grasping it as he leaned back. 

He would fall quite easily, were Balthier to give him a nudge, but he was currently doing his best to resist the temptation: hopefully, he would learn the lesson of his own accord. 

“Hm?”

“How old are you?”

“Hardly a question to ask a gentleman, my dear,” Balthier said mildly, shaking out the cloth in his hand before beginning to work on the next barrel, each time with neat little flicks of his wrist. He liked this sort of work, much as he did the maintenance upon the Strahl, or doing the light work required to repair clothes for the party. It was meditative, and occupied his hands, whilst allowing the turning cogs of his mind to continue in their usual rotations... So long, of course, as they were not interrupted. 

“You said yesterday that you were a rogue, not a gentleman,” Penelo said, raising her chin slightly.

“Did I?”

“Yes, to Princ-- to Ashe.”

“Well, one can be both.”

“You’re avoiding my question.”

“Quite deftly, in fact,” Balthier agreed. 

Her mouth was doing that sweet little thing it often did, maternal beyond her years: in parallel with the neat little furrow of her blonde brows, her lips would tighten and twist, seeming to become but a third of their usual size in their haste to communicate disapproval.

“He’s twenty-two,” said Fran, slowly ascending the steps, and Balthier felt his lips twitch as she gracefully moved to slide into the seat beside him. No sign, yet, of Basch and Ashelia: no doubt, they were still abroad in Rabanastre’s Lowtown, ministering to the people, inspiring revolution... And so on. 

“What?” Vaan asked, and he stumbled in his place: Fran’s hand whipped out lighting fast to catch him by the calf before he tumbled right over the back of the banister and onto the table below him, dragging him forward again. He stumbled as he fell down onto the floor, and reluctantly came to sit at the empty chair, a pout on his face. Quite adorable, really, although Balthier wasn’t going to say so.

Instead, he said, “I did tell you not to perch like that. What do you think you are, a bird?”

“A  _rat_ ,” Vaan said, leaning forward and looking pleased with himself. Balthier’s foot shifted under the table, and Vaan yelped.

“And you squeal like one, too,” Balthier murmured, smirking, and Penelo hid her laugh behind her hand, looking away. Vaan frowned, crossing his arms over his chest, rocking his chair on its two back legs. “Do you never learn your lesson?”

“What lesson?” Vaan asked.

Balthier leaned forward.

“Don’t,” Fran said. ”You’ll break the chair.”

Balthier spread his hands, and begin to neatly put his gun back together, and Vaan fidgeted in his seat - although, Balthier was gratified to note, it was now on four legs on the floor. 

“You’re  _only_  twenty-two?” Vaan demanded. “But you act like-- You act like you’re, you know.  _Old_.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever described myself as such,” Balthier said casually, clicking the handle into place and testing the weight of the piece in his hands. “I don’t believe I  _look_  especially old. Do I, Fran?”

“You all look like children,” Fran said. She wasn’t paying attention to them, but instead to her artfully polished nails. “It is a characteristic of Humes.”

“He looks young,” Penelo said quietly. “Maybe not that young, though.”

“Kind of you to say so,” Balthier murmured, his smile full of indulgent warmth. 

“But that’s, that’s only a little older than me,” Vaan said earnestly, breathlessly, as he leaned even further across the table, and Balthier was interested to note the pink flush on his cheeks, the parted shift of his lips. “That’s-- We...”

“ _We_?” Balthier repeated, arching an eyebrow, and he was delighted to see the way the younger man  _squirm_ , wriggling a little bit in his seat. Balthier looked to Fran, raising his eyebrows, and her mouth shifted into an amused smile to match his own. “We  _what_ , Vaan?”

Vaan bit his lip. 

He was saved by the soft bell of the Sandsea’s door, as Basch and Ashelia, each in unconvincing disguises, made their way in to greet them.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up [on Dreamwidth](https://dictionarywrites.dreamwidth.org/2287.html). You can send requests [on Tumblr](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask), too. Requests always open.
> 
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